The number of people who would benefit from a ruling for the challengers is therefore more than ten timesthe number who would lose an illegal subsidy. And, as discussed below, the pool of people who need such subsidies may be as small as one-tenth the number receiving them.

The Affordable Care Act offers premium subsidies only to taxpayers who enroll in coverage “through an Exchange established by the State.” The Obama administration has nevertheless been issuing premium subsidies in the 38 states that failed to establish ACA-compliant Exchanges. The damage is close to $30billion so far , and could add up to $560 billion over the next decade.

The plaintiffs in King v. Burwell have asked the Supreme Court to declare that spending illegal. These Federalist Society videos explain the legal issues and the potential impact of King v. Burwell.

King v. Burwell: What Is In Dispute?

King v. Burwell: What Are The Consequences?

(NB: Some of the figures mentioned in these videos are dated. The figures used here are current.)

Yet the King plaintiffs are also challenging the taxes that those subsidies trigger. Those premium subsidies directly trigger penalties of about $2,000 per employee against employers who don’t offer adequate coverage their workers, and indirectly trigger penalties averaging more than $1,000 against individuals who don’t buy coverage. All told, issuing subsidies in federal-Exchange states, subjects 67 million employers and workers, and an estimated 11 million individual taxpayers, to those penalties.

In the following table, columns A-C show how many employers, workers, and individuals in each state are currently subject to those penalties simply by virtue of premium subsidies being available in their state.

For federal-Exchange states (in bold), columns A-C show the number of employers and individual residents currently subject to illegal taxes, and, equivalently, the number who would be freed from those illegal taxes by a ruling for the King challengers. In the event a state chooses to respond to such a ruling by establishing an Exchange, those columns show the number of employers and residents on whom state officials would be imposing ObamaCare’s mandates. Similarly, those columns show how many employers and residents President Obama would again subject to those taxes illegally if he flouts the Supreme Court’s ruling by ignoring other requirements the ACA imposes on premium subsidies. Finally, columns A and C also give the number of potential plaintiffs in each state who could file suit to block such illegal taxes and subsidies. (It would probably be too difficult for workers, as opposed to employers, to establish standing to challenge the illegal imposition of the employer mandate.) Notably, the figure for Virginia in column C includes all four King v. Burwell plaintiffs.

For the remaining states, columns A-C show how many employers and individual residents each state could exempt from those taxes, after a ruling for the King challengers, by disestablishing its Exchange. Those columns likewise show how many employers and individuals would be subjected to illegal taxes, and columns A and C show how many could serve as potential plaintiffs, if it turns out those states have not met the requirements imposed on premium subsidies.

Column D shows that for every American who loses a(n illegal) subsidy, ten would be freed from illegal taxes.

The final column suggests the problem of pre-existing conditions itself may be an order of magnitude smaller than the number of people receiving Exchange subsidies. Column E shows peak enrollment in ObamaCare’s temporary high-risk pool—the “Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Program”—in each state. If enrollment had continued its initial rate of growth through mid-2015, there would still be fewer than 250,000 people enrolled today.

Congress doesn’t need to reinstate those subsidies, and thereby expand ObamaCare, to deal with the problem of pre-existing conditions. Repealing ObamaCare’s costly health-insurance regulations would make health insurance more affordable for the vast majority of HealthCare.gov enrollees. Repeal is relief. For the relatively small number of people who still could not obtain coverage due to a pre-existing condition, Congress or the states could provide much more targeted relief through high-risk pools.

Commentary on King v. Burwell focuses almost exclusively on how a ruling could strike down the premium subsidies for 6.5 million Americans in 38 states. It almost never mentions that would mean those subsidies are and always have been illegal. Or that many of those subsidies are unnecessary. Or that it is not the Supreme Court or King but ObamaCare itself that would impose hardship on those who lose subsidies.

The winners under King v. Burwell would vastly outnumber those who would lose an illegal subsidy--to which, by definition, they were never entitled in the first place. There will be even more winners , if Congress responds by repealing the regulations that make ObamaCare coverage so expensive in the first place.